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The Marriage Vows Under Fire Series Novels by Lanette Zavala

Updated 10/10/2013

By May 2013, my 3rd novel, Wedding Vows Under Fire, is scheduled to launch hot off the press. Exploring the highs and lows of marriage, Tonshea Carroll Moore (my sister) and I incorporated plots from two of our existing novels into a new mega storyline on bitter-sweet love – under the light of God’s Word.

With the added suspense of Hell Hostageand the romance of A Special Kind of Rivalry, Wedding Vows Under Fire weaves together various heart-warming, heartbreaking plots written to engage readers of every marital status.

Do you recognize anybody in the main characters of the novel? (And no. This is neither an autobiography nor a biography. But something’s got to be familiar.)

Natalie and Joseph

The story revolves around this interracial Christian couple, Natalie and Joseph Reyes. Although they are in love with each other, sharing children and a highly admired home life together, their marriage is plagued by a mysterious distance from one another and a meddling mother-in-law. Other problems that confront them exist within the lives of other couples on each side of their families.

Shasta and Javier

Just as adultery kills marriage, so can a meddling mother-in-law. And both issues threaten to destroy the marriage of Javier Reyes and his troubled young wife, Shasta, just four months after their remarriage to one another. After his past adulterous fling had almost destroyed any second chance with Shasta, Javier revisits old scandalous habits that are boisterously excused by his partial mother. And there’s only so much a wife can take – even if she’s deeply in love with the man who keeps breaking her heart.

Hearing Natalie’s testimony of Jesus Christ in a way she had never before heard during her own lifetime of traditional worship, Shasta battles with the next step to take in her life – facing a string of explosive problems to resolve as a result of marrying into the Reyes family.

Tiphany and Jimmy

Together, they obtained wealth and formed a luxurious household that includes two sons. Jimmy is the apple of Tiphany’s eye. After years of building a life together, she still reflects on their youthful beginnings while attempting to reaffirm her renewed love toward him with ever given chance.

But Jimmy still hasn’t given her the honor of matrimony. No amount of riches, with which he showers her, can supplement for the one key desire of Tiphany’s heart – to be Mrs. Jimmy Maxwell after ten years of cohabitation. Gradually, as the reality of her relationship unfolds, she begins to discover an idol that she must tear down for the sake of her new hunger for Christ and for the sake of a newly-forming identity. That idol is Jimmy.

Wanda, Tammy and Louis

Married to a woman who backslid in order to win his heathenistic heart, Louis Goldsmith demands her respect to the point of physical retaliation if he feels deprived of it. Tammy agonizes over the pressure of trying to pacify her husband until she is distracted by a bigger problem.

They are kidnapped by two known serial killers. With the accompaniment of a third hostage, who calls herself Wanda, their worlds are turned upside down. Both Tammy and Louis are forced to re-evaluate each of their lives in the world of two killers and a psychotic hostage, who is none other than a family member of Natalie and Joseph. No one in their family circle seems to detect anything wrong with her absence.

Alicia, Angelica, Walter, and Omar

Alicia sees the damage her widowed mother, Angelica, causes in the marriages of her three brothers. So, to remedy the problems, she sets out to find a suitor for her mother. The only man whom she can perceive will put up with a woman, notoriously known for making people’s lives miserable, is a man who would have no better options in his life: a homeless man named Walter Jordan.

Walter is bitter and intolerant. His pride confronts the diligent efforts of Alicia, her sisters-in-law, and Omar as they try grooming him as a team.

Over the course of achieving Walter’s transformation, Alicia discovers Omar in a new light after years of rejecting his interest in her. Although she currently dates a pro ball player, all the impressive glory that she had always valued in a man takes a backseat to priceless qualities that she finds within her friend, Omar. But it may be too late to finally return his affection.

If you love romance without the vulgarity, count on Wedding Vows Under Fire to take you on a leisurely, cloud 9 journey. We wrote the stories to force you into laughter, to excite you with the unexpected, to share the common yet strange changes people put themselves through in order to nourish or shun relationships, and to apply the relevance of faith in Christ in these crazy situations that pertain to love.

Well…that’s what I, as co-author, see in my own work. If you’ll purchase the book or e-book, what would you see? Look for it in May 2013.